Time for another edition of Tiny Utilities. I have three more nifty software in store for you.

Just as the name suggests, this utility displays live statistics about your internet connection. NSL allows you to monitor your internet connection’s status on the fly. This works much better than most web based internet speed checking services. Not only does it display the download and upload speed it also displays the amount of data downloaded and uploaded. Besides that it can also show statistics like CPU usage your system and average ping time and number of hops of a remote machine.

Screenshot

Download NetStat Live (257 KB)
Platforms Supported : All Versions of Windows
Version Reviewed : 2.11

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Irrespective of the browser you use, irrespective of the security software installed on your system if you are using Windows you are never truly secure. There is always the possibility that a trojan horse or a worm may sneak through. There is always the possibility that someone may exploit a zero-day vulnerability present in your browser.

So, what is the solution? The best solution is to completely separate the browser from your system so that your browsing session doesn’t affect the system. This is called creating a sandbox - a virtual container in which untrusted programs can be safely run (more info is available at Wikipedia). There are two free and easy to use solutions that I recommend.

Sandboxie

Sandboxie creates a safe environment - which is separated from your operating system, for applications to operate in. It tracks all requests made by an application and makes sure that actual system files are never modified. Restrictions put in place by Sanboxie also ensures that threats like rootkits and keyloggers aren’t installed in the Sandbox itself as well as the system. Sandboxie is a donationware and almost all the features are available for free (more info). Sandboxie is a very powerful software with plethora of options. It should work with most applications. I tested it with Opera and didn’t run into any problem. It allows you to even create and manage multiple sandboxes. However, the free version of Sandboxie doesn’t automatically sandbox particular applications when they are launched. There is another issue with Sandboxie - files downloaded using a sandboxed application are not normally visible in Windows Explorer. Sandboxie replicates the actual directory structure on your hard disk and places the downloaded files in its own ‘Application Data’ folder.

Download Sandboxie (230KB/320KB)
Requirements : Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista (64 bit edition also available)
Version Reviewed : 2.86 (Freeware)
Licensing : Donationware

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Last month I blogged about “Ten Things You Can Do With IrfanView” (you should read my previous article on IrfanView before reading this). I covered basic image manipulation options offered by IrfanView in the previous article. This time I shall highlight some of the more advanced functionalities offered by IrfanView.

1. Screensaver/Slideshow with Music : IrfanView allows you to use create simple slideshows and screensavers using multiple images. Press W (or select “Slideshow” from File menu) to bring up the Slideshow/Screensaver tool. Now simple add images you wish to include in your Slideshow/Screensaver. If you want to add background music, add MP3 files into the slideshow file list, usually at the beginning or before an image. The MP3 file is played until it ends or until next MP3 is loaded from the file list. IrfanView Plugins should be also installed, at least the MP3 Plugin.

2. Panorama : IrfanView allows you to create panorama images by merging multiple images. You will find this option under “Image” menu.

3. Batch Resize/Convert/Compress/Rename : Batch Processing abilities is what makes IrfanView really powerful. Launch the Batch Processing tool by pressing B (you can also find it under “File” menu). You can resize, convert and rename a whole bunch of image files at a time. You can also use it to compress multiple images at a go. This is very useful if you are going to upload images to the web. In order to compress a JPG or GIF image just reduce the quality of image from “Options”. Normally a value between 60 and 70 works best. For PNG images also you get the option to choose compression level. For better results you use the PNGOUT plugin. You can even rotate images , adjust colours or add overlay text.

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Welcome to the the third installment of my Tiny Utilities series. In each installment I take a lot at three extremely useful yet free utilities which are less than 2MB in size.

Process Lasso from Bitsum Technologies is a tiny utility that can save you some headaches. Its objective is simple – to prevent a problematic application from freezing your system. It does that by quietly running in the background and monitoring the CPU usage of all applications. If any application starts using up abnormal amount of CPU resources then Process Tamer reduces the priority of that application. This prevents those familiar situations where your computer stops responding because a single application is using 99% of CPU resources. Process Lasso itself has a small memory footprint and can work in invisible mode. Certain applications (example: games or video encoders) require high CPU resources to function properly. No need to worry – you can ask Process Lasso to exclude those applications from it’s purview by adding those processes to the exclusion list.

Download Process Lasso (500 KB)
Platforms Supported : Windows 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista
Version Reviewed : 2.30

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Have you ever come across a wonderful video that you wanted to download, but couldn’t find a way to do so? If the answer is yes, read on.

Majority of the video content available on the web can be grouped into four categories: Windows Media Video, Apple QuickTime Video, Real Video and Flash Video. In this article I shall deal with each one of them. But before getting started you need to download few sofware.
All the utilities mentioned below are Freeware.

i) K-Lite Mega Codec Pack so that you can view the media files. Make sure you install Real Alternative, QuickTime Alternative and Mov downloader.
ii) Orbit Downloader to download files.
iii) GetASFStream to download ASF and ASX files.
iv) Naviscope
v) Any FLV viewer to view FLV files.
Now, let’s get started.
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Earlier this week AV-Test.org - a reputed antivirus software testing group, released the results of their latest Antivirus shootout. In this test only detection abilities were tested, not cleaning. Over 600,000 malware samples (which included backdoors, Trojan Horses, bots and worms) were used to test twenty nine software. The top ten performers were :

Software - Detection Rate

AVK 2007 - 99.56%
AntiVir - 99.42%
F-Secure - 97.93%
Symantec - 97.77%
Kaspersky - 97.64%
Fortinet - 97.06%
Avast! - 96.32%
AVG Anti-Malware - 96.15%
Rising - 96.02%
BitDefender - 95.68%
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IrfanView by Irfan Skiljan initially started off as an simple image viewer but has grown into an extremely functional and powerful tool. However, even people who have been using it for a long time aren’t fully aware of what IrfanView is capable of doing. Here are 10 simple things that you can do with IrfanView.

1. View Multimedia Files : The most obvious feature. IrfanView can open an impressive number of file types. It is a true multimedia viewer with the ability to open not only images but also audio and video files. Click here for the full list of file formats supported by IrfanView.

2. Compress Images : Save your bandwidth with IrfanView. Compress images before you upload them on the web. While saving images check the “Show Options Dialogue” check box. Now you can set the quality of your output in the options dialogue box. Fiddle around with it till you manage to strike the right balance between quality and file size. I generally use 70% quality setting for jpg images. While saving png images you can use the PNGOUT plugin by Ken Silverman for effective compression.

3. Convert Images : With IrfanView you can save Images in as many as 20 file formats. Choose the one according to your requirements. I would recommend JPEG for most purposes, gif when you require transparency and PNG when quality matters. Avoid using JPEG format when the image contains a lot of text. Also be careful while using transparent png images on the web as Internet Explorer has a lot of issues with PNG images (more info)
You can even create high quality transparent icons from images using Irfan View.

4. Resize Images : Press Ctrl+R (or clicking Resize/Resample from Images Menu) to bring up the resizing tool included in IrfanView.
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You must be aware that Microsoft has made DirectX 10 a Windows Vista exclusive. This is another evil move by Microsoft to force you to buy Windows Vista. Alky Project from Falling Leaf System wants to thwart Microsoft’s plans by porting DirectX 10 first to Windows XP and then to Linux and then OS X. The Alky Project Libraries would act as a proxy to all Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) accessed by a game. It would redirect API requests made by the game to existing platform functionality or custom implementations as needed.
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